Tag Archives: Social Justice

Change Food believes that every individual plays a role in transforming our food system into one where healthy and sustainable food are accessible to all. And in recent years, thanks to leaders in the food movement, more and more people are learning about the realities of our current food system and our roles within it. However, you may be left wondering: what can I personally do to make an impact within my own community?

No matter how old you are, where you live, or how busy you may be, The Food Activist Handbook offers the information, tools, and resources for you to get involved. Author Ali Berlow offers practical advice that can be heeded by anyone, not just the wealthy or those with ample free time. The Food Activist Handbook is an inclusive, no-nonsense guide “to help you energize and organize your local food system and create better access to healthy food for everyone.” The way we eat determines the way we interact with the environment, the economy, our neighbors, and our own bodies. And we are all responsible for whether or not these interactions are healthy, beneficial, and progressive.

Change Food is excited to put a spotlight on another Change Food community member – the Ceres Community Project and its founder, Cathryn Couch. For the past eight years, Ceres Community Project has revolutionized meal delivery service for vulnerable and underserved communities by providing 100% organic, sustainably raised meals to low income people and families struggling, as well as a nutritional education program that alters longterm eating habits for the better.

In preparing over 100,000 meals each year, Ceres is making real change in Northern California and across the country. In using local teen volunteers and adult volunteer supervisors in their gardens and kitchens, Ceres involves the communities they serve in the food making process in the most intimate of ways — literally growing it from the ground up and preparing it. The teen volunteers take on a mature amount of responsibility in maintaining their garden and kitchen sites, including managing compost systems and pollinator habitats, seed saving, food safety, menu design, and cooking and serving meals, creating an ultimate garden-to-table experience.

Teen volunteers tend to crops at a Ceres Community Project garden, beginning the farm-to-table experience.

Food cooperatives impact communities in ways that go beyond food. Right now, over 45,000 co-ops in the country are providing low cost, healthy food to its members. These stores are community-run businesses based on the cooperative principles that each member has a voice in decisions regarding the production and distribution of its food. One example is The Seward Community Co-op; created in 1972, it remains a staple in its Minneapolis neighborhood. So much so that they have opened a second location, named the Friendship Store. Friend of Change Food and former TEDxManhattan speaker LaDonna Redmond is a key player in it’s creation. The store is located in the Bryant-Central neighborhood, a predominantly African American community that has been without a full service grocery for over 30 years.

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Over five hundred Co-op owners joined the Friendship store within the first week. “People are ready,” says Redmond. The store offers quality food and quality jobs, with 50 percent of employees living less than a mile from the store. This is a huge advantage for a community that struggles with employment discrimination. Co-op employees are provided benefits, insurance and paid $15 an hour.